Lawrence Clavering Part 31

That night, at all events, I acted upon an impulse of which I have never doubted the rect.i.tude. Since I could not restore to her the stolen cloak, I took that other course, and dropped it by the wayside.

I wrote a brief note of thanks to Mr. Curwen, and when the house was quiet, I crept from my room along the pa.s.sage, and dropping out of that window which my host had shown me on the night of my coming to Applegarth, betook me under the star-s.h.i.+ne across the fells.

CHAPTER XV.

I REVISIT BLACKLADIES.

That night I lay in the bracken on the hillside looking down into Ennerdale. Far below I could see one light burning in an upper window at the eastern side of Applegarth. It burned in Dorothy's chamber, and its yellow homeliness tugged at my heart as I lay there, the lonesome darkness about me, the shrill cry of the wind in my ears. The light burned very late that night. The clouds were gradually drawn like a curtain beneath the stars, and still it burned, and it was the blurring of the rain which at the last hid it from my sight.

For the next three days I hid amongst the hills betwixt Borrowdale and Applegarth. I was now fallen upon the last days of September, and the weather very shrewd with black drenching storms of rain which would sweep up the valleys with extraordinary suddenness, impenetrable as a screen, blotting out the world. The wind, too, blew from the north, bitter and cold, moaning up and down the faces of cliffs, whistling through the gra.s.ses, with a sound inimitably desolate, and twisting to a very whirlpool in the gaps between the mountain-peaks. To make my case the harder, I had come away in that haste, and oblivion of all but the necessity of my departure, that I had made little provision in my dress to defend me against the las.h.i.+ng of the wind and rain. I had picked up a hat and a long cloak, it is true, but for the rest, I wore no stouter covering than that suit of white which Mary Tyson had laid out for me so reluctantly. It was an unfit garb for my present life, and one that was to prove a considerable danger to me. But it was the cold discomfort of it which vexed me now. I had occasion enough to reflect on the folly of my precipitation, as I lay crouched in some draughty cave of boulders, watching the livelong day the clouds lower and lift, the battalions of the rain trample across the fells, and seeking to warm myself with the thought of that army in Scotland marching to the English borders. At nightfall I would creep down into Borrowdale, procure food from one of my old tenants who was well-disposed to me, and so get me back again to some jutting corner whence I could look down Gillerthwaite to Applegarth. But I looked in vain for the lights of the house. On the night of my departure, I saw them, but never afterwards, even when the air was of the clearest, so that I knew not what to think, and was almost persuaded to return to the house, that I might ascertain the cause of their disappearance.

So for four days and nights, whilst an old thought shaped to a resolve. For in the pocket of my coat, I had carried away not merely the b.u.t.ton I had discovered in the garden at Blackladies--that never left my person--but the letter Tash had brought to me from Lord Derwent.w.a.ter. I had been interrupted in the reading of it by Mr.

Curwen's return, and so crammed it into my pocket with some part of it unread. However, I gave very careful heed to it now.

"My own affairs," it ran on, "have come to so desperate a pa.s.s that I dare not poke my nose into the matter of Herbert's disappearance; I live, indeed, myself, in hourly expectation of arrest. Your servant came again to me from Blackladies the other day, and told me a watch was no longer kept upon the house."

And since I had no knowledge that England was stirring in support of the rebellion, I determined to hazard an interview with my cousin, and so late on the fifth night climbed into the garden of Blackladies and let myself into the house as I had once seen Jervas Rookley do. I stood for a little in the parlour, feeling the darkness throb heavily about me with all the memories of that fatal night which had compa.s.sed my undoing.

Then I crossed towards the hall, but, my cloak flapping and dragging noisily at a chair as I pa.s.sed, I loosed it from my shoulders and left it there. No lamp was burning in the hall, and since the curtains were drawn close over the lower windows, only the faintest of twilights penetrating through the upper panes made a doubtful glimmering beneath the roof; so that one seemed to be standing in a deep well.

The dining-room lay to my right on the further side of the hall. I made towards it, and of a sudden came sharply to a halt, my heart fairly quivering within me. For it seemed to me that the figure of a man had suddenly sprung out of the darkness and was advancing to me, but so close that the next step would bring our heads knocking against each other. And he had made no sound. As I stopped, the figure stopped. For a moment I stood watching it, holding my breath, then I clapped my hand to my sword, and the next moment I could have laughed at my alarm. For the figure copied my gesture. It was, moreover, dressed in clothes of a white colour from top to toe, and it was for that reason I saw its movements so distinctly. But I was likewise dressed in white. The one difference, in fact, between us which I noted was a certain black sheen in which it stood framed. I reached out a hand; it slid upon the polished surface of a great mirror.

The dining-room, I knew, opened at the side of this mirror, and I groped cautiously for the handle of the door, but before I found it my hand knocked against the key. With equal caution I opened the door to the width of an inch or so. A steady light shone upon the side of the wall, and through the opening there came the sound of a man snoring. I put my head into the room; and there to my inexpressible relief was Jervas Rookley. He was dressed in a suit of black satin, stretched to his full length upon a chair in front of a blazing fire, his head thrown back, his periwig on the floor, his cravat loosened, his shoes unbuckled off his feet.

I closed the door behind me; then opened it again and pocketed the key against which my hand had struck. The truth is that now that I was come into the man's presence, which I had before considered the most difficult part of the business, I now, on the contrary, saw very clearly that it was the easiest. I had not merely to come into his presence; I had to win out of it afterwards; and moreover I had somehow or other to twist from him the information about Mr. Herbert's whereabouts, for which I had adventured the visit.

I stepped on tiptoe across the carpet and seated myself in a chair facing him at the corner of the fireplace. Then I sought to arrange and order the questions I should put to him. But in truth I found the task well-nigh beyond my powers. It was all very well to tell myself that I was here on behalf of my remnant honour to secure the enlargement of Mr. Herbert. But the man was face to face with me; the firelight played upon his honest face and outstretched limbs; and I felt hatred spring up in me and kindle through my veins like fire. Up till now, so engrossed had I been by the turmoil of my own more personal troubles, I had given little serious thought to Jervas Rookley: I had taken his treachery almost callously as an accepted thing, and the depths of my indignation had only been stirred against myself. Now, however, every piece of trickery he had used on me crowded in upon my recollections. I might cry out within myself, "Anthony Herbert! Anthony Herbert!" Anthony Herbert was none the less pushed to the backward of my mind. That honest face was upturned to the light, and my thoughts swarmed about it I scanned it most carefully. It was more than common flushed and swollen, for which I was at no loss to account, since a bottle of French brandy stood on a little table at his elbow, three parts empty, and a carafe of water three parts full. I reached over for the bottle, and rinsing out his gla.s.s, helped myself, bethinking me that after my exposure of the three last days, its invigoration might prove of use to me.

But as I sat there and drank the brandy and watched Jervas Rookley's face, my fingers ever strayed to the hilt of my sword; I moved the weapon gently backwards and forwards so as to satisfy my ears with the pleasant jingle of the hanger; I half drew the blade from the sheath and rubbed my thumb along the edge until the blood came; and then I sat looking at the blood, and from the blood to Jervas Rookley, until at last an overmastering desire grew hot about my heart It was no longer the edge or the point of the sword which I desired to employ. I wanted to smash in that broad, honest face with the big pommel, and I feared the moment of his awakening lest I should yield to the temptation.

Fortunately, his first movement was one that diverted my thoughts. For as he opened his eyes he stretched out his hands to the brandy bottle.

It was near to my elbow, however, on the mantelpiece, and I refilled my own gla.s.s. It was, I think, the sound of the liquor tinkling into the gla.s.s more than the words I spoke to him which made Rookley open his eyes. He blinked at me for a moment.

"You?" said he, but blankly with the stupor of his sleep still heavy upon him.

"Yes!" said I, drinking the brandy.

He followed the gla.s.s to my lips and woke to the possession of some part of his senses.

"I had expected you before," says he, and sits clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth and swallowing, as though his throat was parched.

"So I believe," I returned. "You had even gone so far as to prepare for me a fitting welcome."

He was by this time wide awake. He picked up his peruke, clapped it on his head, and stood up in his stocking feet.

"Your servants, sir," says he with inimitable a.s.surance, "will always honour their master with a fitting welcome, so long as I am steward, on whatever misfortunes he may have declined."

"I meant," said I, "a welcome not so much fitting my masters.h.i.+p as that honesty of yours, Mr. Rookley, which my Lord Derwent.w.a.ter tells me is all on the outside."

I bent forward, keeping my eyes upon his face. But not a muscle jerked in it.

"Ah!" said he, in an indifferent voice. "Did Lord Derwent.w.a.ter tell you that? Well, I had never a great respect for his discernment;" and he stood looking into the fire. Then he glanced at me and uttered a quiet little laugh.

"So you knew," said he, easily, "I had it in my mind, but I could not be certain."

"I have known it----" I cried, exasperated out of all control by his cool audacity; and with a wave of the hand he interrupted me.

"You will excuse me," he said politely; and then, "There is no longer any reason why I should stand, is there?" and he resumed his seat and slipped his feet into his shoes. "Now," said he, "if you will pa.s.s the bottle."

"No," I roared in a fury.

"Well, well," he returned, "since there seems some doubt which of us is host and which guest, I will not press the request. You were saying that you have known it----?"

"Since one evening when you showed me a private entrance into Blackladies," I cried; and bending forward to press upon him the knowledge that he had thereby foiled himself, I added in some triumph, "I have great reason to thank you for that, Mr. Jervas Rookley."

He leaned forward too, so that our heads were close together.

"And for more than that," said he. "Believe me, dear Mr. Clavering, that is by no means all you have to thank me for;" and he very affectionately patted my knee.

"And that is very true," says I, as I drew my knee away. "For I have to thank you for the fourth part of a bottle of brandy, but I cannot just bring to mind any other occasion of grat.i.tude."

"Oh, grat.i.tude!" says he, with a reproachful shake of the hand. "Fie, Mr. Clavering! Between gentleman and cousins the word stinks--it positively stinks. Whatever little service I have done for you, calls for no such big-sounding name."

His voice, his looks, his gestures were such as a man notes only in a friend, and a friend that is perplexed by some unaccountable suspicion.

"But you spoke of honesty," he continued, throwing a knee across the other and spreading out his hands. "It is very true I played a trick on you in coming to Paris as your servant But it is a trick which my betters had used before me. Your Duke of Ormond got him into France with the help of a lackey's livery. And your redoubtable Mar----"

At that name I started.

"It is indeed so," he said earnestly. "The Earl of Mar, I have it on the best authority, worked his pa.s.sage as a collier into Scotland."

It was not, however, that I was concerned at all as to how the Earl of Mar had escaped unremarked from London. But it suddenly occurred to me, as an explanation of Rookley's friendly demeanour, that the insurrection might be sweeping southwards on a higher tide of success than I had been disposed to credit. If that was the case, Mr. Jervas Rookley would of a certainty be anxious still to keep friends with me.

"So you see, Mr. Clavering," he went on, "I have all the precedents that a man could need to justify me."

"Well," said I, "it is not the trick itself which troubles me so much as your design in executing it."

"Design?" says he, taking me up in a tone of wonderment "You are very suspicious, Mr. Clavering. But I do not wonder at it, knowing in what school you were brought up;" and rising from his chair he took a pipe from the mantel-shelf and commenced to fill it with tobacco, "The suspicion, however, is unjust."

He bent down and plucked a splinter of burning wood out of the fire.

"You do not smoke, I believe, but most like you do now, and at all events you will have grown used to the smell."

I started forward and stared at him. He lighted his pipe with great deliberation.

"Yes," said he nodding his head at me, "the suspicion is unjust." He tossed the splinter into the fire and sat down again.